Business Planning | Teik Oh

20 Year Vision, 5 Year Plan, 1 Year Action

Mar 30 2015

In an earlier article I wrote about the difference between a strategic plan and a business plan, and I discussed the different timeframes for each.

Kath wrote to me and asked how far ahead she should look in her strategic plan.

I have seen strategic plans as short as 5 years, I have also seen others that encompass 20 years’ strategic direction. The most practical is probably a timeframe over 10 years.

Firstly let’s remember what a strategic plan is for. It is a document that provides the overall (hence strategic) direction for an organisation, that is based on working towards that organisation’s vision. As such it is necessarily short on detail, generally because it takes a number of years to achieve a vision, particularly if it is intently aspirational and a bit of a reach. If the real timeframe for the achievement of the vision is 10 to 20 years, you cannot possibly predict any detail of what the world and therefore your response will be over that time. The strategic plan provides strategy, not detailed operational action plans, which come from implementing the strategy over a shorter period.

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How to Implement Change in your Business

Mar 27 2015

What do they say about only two things being constant – death and taxes? Well I have news for you – in today’s world horrible people find new ways to cause death, and governments change taxes all the time! There’s only one thing that’s constant – change is constant!

The problem is people hate change. Whether you want to introduce a small change such as your price list, or something bigger like a new process for doing something in your business, or something really stressful like a merger or opening a new branch, people will hate it and voice the question “why?”

Whenever you want to introduce change, you need to bring people with you. Implementing change is all about leadership, leadership that puts in front of people a desirable and inspirational future picture of the company. Leadership is required in communicating the desirability of that future and therefore why people need to embrace the change that is necessary. Leaders need to explain the why’s, what’s, who’s and how’s of change.

This video discusses what you need to do:-

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What is the difference between Strategic Planning and Business Planning?

Mar 23 2015

I get a lot of calls and email from people asking me questions about strategic planning. After the first few minutes of conversation or reading the email it becomes clear that many people are talking about a business plan when they refer to a strategic plan. So, I thought I would discuss the difference between the two.

Planning is planning, but a strategic plan has a quite different purpose to a business plan.

Usually a strategic plan is an internal document that provides an overall direction for a business that looks out over a longer timeframe than a business plan. I explain it by calling it a “helicopter view”, that is, you provide a view of the topography your business operates in, you identify your current position and you identify where you want to go, and you provide a broad “strategic” direction of your desired path to get there. There are very few details for a number of reasons.

Firstly because of the longer timeframe many details that you require to make detailed plans are unavailable. Then the purpose of a strategic plan, to set strategy, does not require detail but rather needs to identify key strategic issues that the company will face over 5 to 10 to 20 years, and the strategies it will use to get there. In my helicopter analogy, you know you want to go east – you do not at this stage need to know which of 5 available roads you will take.

A business plan on the other hand should be prepared to cover a shorter timeframe, from 1 to 5 years. Since it is expected to contain some more detail about the actual steps you will need to take to implement your strategy, the inputs that will affect your decisions need to be more predictable, hence the shorter timeframe. Logically then, you may formulate a 10 year strategic plan, then follow up with two sequential 5 year business plans.

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Cultivate surprise in your business!

Mar 13 2015

In business it is critical that you formulate and write down your plans. The old adage “businesses do not plan to fail, they fail to plan” is so true! Throughout the world the statistics is quite consistent – between 70% and 80% of startup businesses fail within the first three years, and when asked, most of these business owners say that they operated without a plan.

And yet, in my three decades of helping clients start and grow businesses, I can tell you, hand on heart, that your business plan is out of date as soon as it is written!

What? So why the heck am I spending this much time (and probably money) planning and documenting my plan?

Because you need to have an idea of what you are up against, what opportunities you can take advantage of, and how you will go about it. With a plan, as some of your assumptions change or circumstances change them, you will know the strategic direction you are heading, the steps you intended to take and how you can adjust them to suit the changed circumstances. Without a plan all you can do is react, follow events, rather than create them.

So how do you deal with changing circumstances? In this video I talk about expecting surprises to pop up. Cultivate the ability to look for surprises and the flexibility to take them on board as opportunities! Read More

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Metrics for better business

Mar 09 2015

In an earlier article, I wrote about how the measurement of your business success should include qualitative measures as well as quantitative benchmarks.

I received a lot of email to ask about what quantitative metrics I thought were important in business. Now, I repeat what I said earlier, first, that qualitative metrics such as customer satisfaction and service delivery times can be just as important as quantitative measures. Secondly, that you need to define what you mean by success before you can choose the appropriate measures.

Having said that however, I thought I should deal with all those emails and provide a discussion on the types of quantitative measurements you might want to employ.

Howard from Sydney asked what might be some warning signs to watch out for.

Here are some quantitative metrics from your profit and loss account that can show your business is needing attention:-

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Increase your sales through a highly focused marketing plan!

SMART Marketing: In this book, the owners of a small business are led through the SMART Marketing 7 Step Process to produce a marketing plan targeted at their most desirable customers. Any business can use these principles and in 4 to 6 weeks implement a plan to get them through the door! Find out how...

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Category - Business Planning

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20 Year Vision, 5 Year Plan, 1 Year Action

How to Implement Change in your Business

What is the difference between Strategic Planning and Business Planning?

Cultivate surprise in your business!

Metrics for better business